Implode-Explode Heavy Industries news feedhttp://implode-explode.com/
Tracking the many faces of the global credit implosion.
en-usiehi-feed-64734Fri, 24 May 2019 12:31:37 GMTFederal Savings Bank CEO Indicted For Approving Manafort Mortgageshttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-24_FederalSavingsBankCEOIndictedForApprovingManafortMortgages.html
iehi-feed-64729Wed, 22 May 2019 15:05:56 GMTSandals Resorts Allegedly Ripped Off Guests With Bogus Taxes Chargeshttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-22_SandalsResortsAllegedlyRippedOffGuestsWithBogusTaxesCharges.html
iehi-feed-64726Mon, 20 May 2019 18:07:44 GMTDitech Customers Win Major Victory In Ditech Bankruptcyhttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-20_DitechCustomersWinMajorVictoryInDitechBankruptcy.html
iehi-feed-64723Sun, 19 May 2019 17:16:51 GMTDe Blasio admin. moves to strip equity from hundreds of homes in black and Hispanic neighborhoods in "third-party transfer" foreclosureshttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-19_DeBlasioadminmovestostripequityfromhundredsofhomesinblackandHisp.html
In the Council districts that include Williamsburg, Bushwick, Brownsville and East New York, the city has initiated third-party proceedings on at least 107 homes and foreclosed on 20. In three South Bronx districts, 83 third-party proceedings have been launched since 2015, records show. Of those, 18 properties have changed hands.

The city has foreclosed on 62 properties citywide through the program overall since 2015, officials said. Critics from homeowners to elected officials and lawyer-advocates claim the city has failed to notify property owners who are losing long-term investments.

"A lot of these homeowners had no idea these properties were being taken out from under them," said Scott Kohanowski, an attorney and the director of the Homeowner Stability Project. "And the city takes all that equity. That's the most appalling part."

...

City officials contend they notify both landlords and tenants through mailed notices, robocalls, flyers and forums. But some say tenants don't find out about what's happening until it's too late.

A lawyer for tenants at a foreclosure in the Bronx, Serge Joseph, said their co-op board did not receive notice.

...

"[The city] told people there would be no more shareholding, but they didn't explain anything. They didn't say why," Jones said. "This whole group is just taking away people's housing. That's their purpose."

]]>iehi-feed-64721Sun, 19 May 2019 16:59:20 GMTThe suburban lifestyle: coming to a city near you (FOR $2M+ OF COURSE)http://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-19_ThesuburbanlifestylecomingtoacitynearyouFOR2MOFCOURSE.html
the idea of a city itself is changing. In some ways, living in a dense urban area has become much more pleasant for certain types of people -- namely the affluent and those who prize proximity to the action above all else. You can now live within easy walking distance of your favorite restaurants, go see a play and shop at Target nearby. But what does it mean when urban living becomes a luxury good and a lifestyle brand?

...

At the Dahlia, a 38-unit building under construction on Manhattan's Upper West Side, developers say the idea is to set up condos large enough that they could reasonably replicate the feeling of a house in suburbia. The building has no studios or one-bedrooms. The largest units, with four bedrooms, are around 2,100 square feet with prices starting just over $4 million.

One of the Dahlia's biggest selling points? It has its own parking garage. "You can pull in with your S.U.V., unload and take your things in a private manner," said Shlomi Reuveni, the president of the company that is handling sales for the building. "That's very appealing." And very suburban.

In some high-end buildings, architects are giving apartments the feel of single-family homes by replicating the layouts of suburban houses. At the Quay Tower, which overlooks Brooklyn Bridge Park, there are just five condos on each floor, two of which have private elevator access. Inside, the larger units have something you see a lot of on HGTV suburban house renovation shows: large mudrooms off the back door with locker-like cubbies and sturdy ceramic-tile floors.

In Seattle, there's a new luxury apartment building with a rooftop lounge with hammocks and a chicken coop you might see in a more permissive (or at least chicken-friendly) suburb. In New York, the developer Extell is wrapping up construction on the Kent, a building on the Upper East Side that has, in addition to a stroller valet and a swimming pool where kids can take lessons, an area called "Camp Kent." It's a play space that looks like a woodsy country scene with a treehouse and a carpeted "river" leading to a private outdoor playground.

]]>iehi-feed-64720Sat, 18 May 2019 18:25:16 GMTDeed Fraud Alert: Woman Evicted From Home She Thought She Ownedhttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-18_DeedFraudAlertWomanEvictedFromHomeSheThoughtSheOwned.html
iehi-feed-64718Thu, 16 May 2019 13:59:11 GMTStudent Loan Debt Alert: Feds Crank Up Collection Effortshttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-16_StudentLoanDebtAlertFedsCrankUpCollectionEfforts.html
iehi-feed-64716Wed, 15 May 2019 16:17:01 GMTAmateur Home Flippers Get Harsh Wake Up Callhttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-15_AmateurHomeFlippersGetHarshWakeUpCall.html
iehi-feed-64715Tue, 14 May 2019 14:14:16 GMTAngelo Mozilo Says He Is Done Being The Villain Of The Financial Crisishttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-14_AngeloMoziloSaysHeIsDoneBeingTheVillainOfTheFinancialCrisis.html
iehi-feed-64714Tue, 14 May 2019 11:51:59 GMTLive Well Financial's abrupt closing leads to host of problemshttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-14_LiveWellFinancialsabruptclosingleadstohostofproblems.html
iehi-feed-64713Mon, 13 May 2019 12:15:19 GMTNew York City Taxes Create A Conga Line Of Businesses To Miamihttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-13_NewYorkCityTaxesCreateACongaLineOfBusinessesToMiami.html
iehi-feed-64712Sun, 12 May 2019 15:11:46 GMTRide Sharing Scam Alert: Ride Sharing Scammers Bustedhttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-12_RideSharingScamAlertRideSharingScammersBusted.html
iehi-feed-64708Wed, 08 May 2019 03:52:34 GMTFraud Prince: Leaked Trump Tax Figures Show Over $1 Billion in Business Losses Thru '94http://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-07_FraudPrinceLeakedTrumpTaxFiguresShowOver1BillioninBusinessLosses.html
By the time his master-of-the-universe memoir "Trump: The Art of the Deal" hit bookstores in 1987, Donald J. Trump was already in deep financial distress, losing tens of millions of dollars on troubled business deals, according to previously unrevealed figures from his federal income tax returns.

Mr. Trump was propelled to the presidency, in part, by a self-spun narrative of business success and of setbacks triumphantly overcome. He has attributed his first run of reversals and bankruptcies to the recession that took hold in 1990. But 10 years of tax information obtained by The New York Times paints a different, and far bleaker, picture of his deal-making abilities and financial condition.

The data -- printouts from Mr. Trump's official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form, the 1040, for the years 1985 to 1994 -- represents the fullest and most detailed look to date at the president's taxes, information he has kept from public view. Though the information does not cover the tax years at the center of an escalating battle between the Trump administration and Congress, it traces the most tumultuous chapter in a long business career -- an era of fevered acquisition and spectacular collapse.

The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses -- largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade.

In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found...

...

Mr. Trump was able to lose all that money without facing the usual consequences -- such as a steep drop in his standard of living -- in part because most of it belonged to others, to the banks and bond investors who had supplied the cash to fuel his acquisitions. And as The Times's earlier investigation showed, Mr. Trump secretly leaned on his father's wealth to continue living like a winner and to stage a comeback.

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The new information also suggests that Mr. Trump's 1990 collapse might have struck several years earlier if not for his brief side career posing as a corporate raider. From 1986 through 1988, while his core businesses languished under increasingly unsupportable debt, Mr. Trump made millions of dollars in the stock market by suggesting that he was about to take over companies. But the figures show that he lost most, if not all, of those gains after investors stopped taking his takeover talk seriously.

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the president has filed lawsuits against his banks and accounting firm to prevent them from turning over tax returns and other financial records.

In New York, the attorney general's office is investigating the financing of several major Trump Organization projects; Deutsche Bank has already begun turning over documents. The state attorney general is also examining issues raised last year by The Times's investigation, which revealed that much of the money Mr. Trump had received from his father came from his participation in dubious tax schemes, including instances of outright fraud.

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At his nadir, in the post-recession autumn of 1991, Mr. Trump testified before a congressional task force, calling for changes in the tax code to benefit his industry.

"The real estate business -- we're in an absolute depression," Mr. Trump told the lawmakers, adding: "I see no sign of any kind of upturn at all. There is no incentive to invest. Everyone is doing badly, everyone."

... [But] While Donald Trump reported hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for 1990 and 1991, Fred Trump's returns showed a positive income of $53.9 million, with only one major loss: $15 million invested in his son's latest apartment project.

]]>iehi-feed-64703Sun, 05 May 2019 19:39:06 GMTThe New Mall Tenant Is Your Officehttp://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2019-05-05_TheNewMallTenantIsYourOffice.html
Westside Pavilion, a dying mall in Los Angeles, ticked all of the boxes for Hudson Pacific Properties... as Hudson Pacific started planning to outfit the mall, along came Google, a Hudson Pacific tenant elsewhere in the city. "The stars kind of aligned," said Alexander Vouvalides, the developer's chief investment officer.

The old mall would become new office space. The 584,000-square-foot Google complex, to be called One Westside, is projected to be finished in 2022 at a cost of up to $410 million.

The Westside Pavilion redevelopment is one of the latest examples of a nationwide trend in commercial real estate: the conversion of malls into office space. Offices are less risky than retailers, and in some cases they can generate foot traffic for the mall's remaining stores and restaurants.

The biggest beneficiaries of the conversions are co-working enterprises, like WeWork, which provide shared work spaces primarily to entrepreneurs, freelancers and start-ups. The highest concentration of co-working spaces in retail nationally is in malls, according to an August study by the global property company Jones Lang LaSalle. The same study predicted that co-working space in retail in general would grow at an annual rate of 25 percent through 2023.

...

"It used to be you wanted to be kind of a purist, and if you built a mall you just wanted specific mall tenants. In fact, mall tenants used to state things like that in their leases," Mr. Karp said. "In today's day and age, you've got to create a different experience."

...

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has co-working spaces in two of its malls. In Manhattan's Fulton Center, it has a partnership with WeWork, and it opened its own co-working concept, Bespoke, at Westfield San Francisco Center.

Cowork at the Mall, a New York-based start-up, plans this summer to open its first co-working space at Chicago's Water Tower mall in approximately 15,000 square feet that a Sports Authority once occupied. It is also planning two locations in the Los Angeles area.

The company originally assumed it would draw the most interest from smaller online firms that wanted a physical presence, said Mark Kennedy, chief strategy officer of Cowork at the Mall. Instead, the interest came from more established brands -- like Lego, Microsoft, Nike, Old Navy, Riley Rose and Samsung -- that told him they no longer needed larger footprints and multiple locations, he said